Magnotta will not take the stand in his defence

The defence has formally rested its case in the first-degree murder trial of Luka Rocco Magnotta without the accused taking the stand.

Sue Montgomery, Montreal Gazette

Updated: November 25, 2014

Diran Lin, father of Jun Lin leaves the courtroom at the murder trial for Luka Rocco Magnotta Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 in Montreal. Magnotta is charged in connection with the death and dismemberment of university student Jun Lin.Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press

Luka Magnotta won’t be telling the jury in his first-degree murder trial why he cut Lin Jun’s throat, dismembered him and mailed his body parts across the country.

Defence lawyer Luc Leclair wrapped up his case Tuesday without calling to testify his 32-year-old client, who has sat mostly despondent and hunched over in the prisoner’s box throughout the eight-week-and-counting trial.

During the past 14 days in Quebec Superior Court, Leclair has called a dozen witnesses, including Magnotta’s father, who, like his son, suffers from schizophrenia. No other family members testified in his defence.

Magnotta has admitted to all five counts against him, including making a video of Lin, 33, before and after his slaying on May 25, 2012, and posting it to the Internet. But his lawyer is trying to convince the eight-woman, six-man jury that Magnotta, who was given a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia when he was a teen, didn’t fully appreciate the nature of his crimes.

Gilles Chamberland, a psychiatrist called by the Crown Tuesday to rebut testimony by the two defence expert psychiatric witnesses, said he couldn’t give a diagnosis because Magnotta refused to meet with him.

But he said one didn’t have to be in the depths of psychosis — something the defence claims — in order to do what Magnotta did to Lin.

“This case is almost a course in psychiatry itself,” said Chamberland, who has sat through all the testimony to date. “It’s a very complex case.”

He said people who suffer from schizophrenia lose part of their capacity to function after every psychotic episode.

“The person loses part of themselves each time,” he said.

Joel Paris, the psychiatrist at the Jewish General Hospital who saw Magnotta a month before Lin’s death, also told the court it was one of the most unusual cases he had seen “in a lifetime of psychiatry.”

He said Magnotta had been referred to him by a CLSC and the patient showed up on time for the appointment he made himself.

The two spent about an hour together, along with a resident doctor, Paris said.

Without having access to Magnotta’s medical history or records, other than what the patient told him, Paris gave a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

“It is a continuous disorder for many years,” he testified. “They have trouble holding a job or maintaining a relationship.

“These are the most frequent patients in psychiatry.”

At the end of the appointment, Paris recommended that Magnotta join the hospital’s borderline personality disorder program and had planned to get the patient’s past medical records from various hospitals in Ontario and one in Miami.

But just a few weeks later, Lin was killed.

“I read it in the newspaper and knew right away it was him,” Paris said. “I remembered him.”

“Do you remember telling me when we spoke that it was the biggest mistake of your career?” the defence lawyer asked Paris during cross examination.

“No, I don’t remember that,” he replied.

Magnotta was composed and coherent when he arrived for his appointment with Paris, the doctor recalled.

The patient reported highs and lows and manic phases during which he was unable to sleep and would shop. Afterward, he would crash, Paris said.

“But he didn’t have any grandiose ideas like being the Messiah,” he said.

Magnotta took off the wig he wore to the appointment to show his hair transplants and it was then that Paris noted that he had been pulling his hair out. Magnotta admitted that he chewed on his hair but never swallowed it.

“He said he felt empty, and had a fear of abandonment, of betrayal,” the doctor told court. “He idolizes people then gets disappointed in them and is very needy.”

Magnotta cut himself when he was younger and twice tried to kill himself — once by trying to jump in front of a subway but he was stopped by another passenger.

A Montreal detective, who specializes in street drug language, testified about the texts found on Magnotta’s phone.

Francis Derome said that Magnotta only used marijuana and at one point wanted to buy seven grams, or enough for 14 to 21 joints.

A person sending a text to Magnotta asked if he took drugs, to which he replied, only pot.

None of the witnesses who have taken the stand so far, including people Magnotta stayed with in Berlin, noticed him abusing alcohol or drugs.

The Peterborough, Ont., native moved to Montreal in 2011, apparently to start a new life, and rented a studio apartment on Décarie Blvd. in Côte-des-Neiges. He met Lin, a Chinese national and student at Concordia University, through Craigslist and the two were seen on video surveillance entering the apartment at about 10 p.m. on May 24. Lin never came out.

His body parts were discovered five days later in the garbage behind the building after Magnotta had already fled the country for Europe.

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